Medicine/Medical. the plan for carrying out a scientific study or a patient's treatment regimen.

Computers. a set of rules governing the format of messages that are exchanged between computers.

Also called protocol statement,protocol sentence,protocol proposition.Philosophy. a statement reporting an observation or experience in the most fundamental terms without interpretation: sometimes taken as the basis of empirical verification, as of scientific laws.

verb (used without object)

to draft or issue a protocol.

Origin of protocol

1535–45; earlier protocoll < Medieval Latinprōtocollum < Late Greekprōtókollon orig., a leaf or tag attached to a rolled papyrus manuscript and containing notes as to contents. See proto-, colloid

protocol

n.

1540s, as prothogall "draft of a document," from Middle French prothocole (c.1200, Modern French protocole), from Medieval Latin protocollum "draft," literally "the first sheet of a volume" (on which contents and errata were written), from Greek protokollon "first sheet glued onto a manuscript," from protos "first" (see proto-) + kolla "glue."

Sense developed in Medieval Latin and French from "official account" to "official record of a transaction," to "diplomatic document," and finally, in French, to "formula of diplomatic etiquette." Meaning "diplomatic rules of etiquette" in English first recorded 1896, from French; general sense of "conventional proper conduct" is from 1952. "Protocols of the (Learned) Elders of Zion," Russian anti-Semitic forgery purporting to reveal Jewish plan for world domination, first published in English 1920 under title "The Jewish Peril."